Here was a man who most people would consider a success. He had a well-paying job that afforded him and his family a comfortable upper middle-class life. He was able to take four weeks of vacation each year and took a trip to Hawaii every year, where he had a condo.

Humans are innately social creatures. You’ve probably heard before that it’s hard wired into our biology to want and need to connect with others. What you may not know is that connection is a major contributor to achieving happiness.

We spend about 35% of our waking hours in the workplace, assuming eight hours of sleep each night and a 40-hour work week (and I know most of us are definitely working more than 40 hours!). That’s a significant chunk of our life, so it’s no wonder that unhappiness and stress in the workplace affects our overall well being and levels of happiness.

But we don’t have to resign ourselves to the fact that work is supposed to be “work”— there are ways to use positive psychology principles, backed by science, to help improve the workplace.

Your weight and your level of happiness have more in common than you may think. No, I’m not saying that your happiness is linked to your weight! I am saying, though, that you have control over how happy you are, just as you have control over your weight… and probably not in the ways you think you are.